The Stars Are LegionI was really expecting to have a strong reaction to this book one way or another (it's lesbians in space! But it's also really brutal!), but I really didn't. It was... fine? All the characters were women and most of them were pretty great. Some of the macabre stuff worked and some was really unnecessary. One of the plot threads turned into a fantasy quest narrative for some reason and I wasn't really here for that. I also felt like it introduced lots of potentially interesting thematic elements (ecology and conservation, class, pregnancy and choice etc) and then didn't actually do anything with them, which was disappointing.

Court of FivesI wanted to like this book, but really couldn't. I found the writing so flat and stilted and awkward; I can't quite believe that it was by the same person who wrote the Cold Magic trilogy (which I loved). None of the characters, their relationships or their world came to life for me, which made it hard to care about anything that happened. It just felt like Standard YA Plot #742 with some cursory frills added, especially in the incredibly standard m/f romance scenes. (I'm also not entirely sure how I feel about the revelation that (skip) black people are literally magic; like, I see what the author was trying to do, but I am also v wary of anything where marginalised people are portrayed as somehow categorically different.)

Jughead vol 1I picked this up because I knew it was the volume where Jughead is canonically established as (aro)ace*, and what a delight it was. <3 I really enjoyed how casually Jughead's sexuality was presented: there's no angst or misery or dramatic coming out arcs, this is just how he is and it's all fine. <3 (Of course, this only made me angrier about the CW's Riverdale, but I was pretty angry and upset already, so I feel like it was worth it.) I also just liked Jughead a lot overall: he's such an overdramatic weirdo and I loved all his elaborate daydreams about how he and his friends would solve their problems if they were superheroes, or secret agents, or time travellers, etc. <3 My favourite moment was probably Jughead's father explaining why he told such a barefaced lie to get Jughead unexpelled: "My kid's weird, but he's not a criminal." <3 (There was also an issue of Archie included with this volume, which was very helpful in confirming that no, there is nothing at all in that comic for me.)

*he's referred to as asexual, but it's pretty clear that he's also aromantic.